DIY Activity Dice for Kids

 

Like most other kids his age, my 8 year old son is FULL of energy! He is constantly in motion and is ready for a game of tag or catch at any time. As the Mama of a go, go, goer, I am always looking for a good way for my busy bee to burn up some of that energy. My son really likes games so I thought that a set of activity dice would be good for him. He could use them anytime, indoors or outdoors and be spending some of that excess energy! Sounds good to me!

Making these activity dice was really simple and only took about 1 hour, including drying time. Keep in mind that the more paint that you put on your dice, the longer they will take to fully dry, so project times may vary. Here’s what ya do:

 

Supplies Needed

*2 bare wood blocks any size but kids tend to like the larger, more chunky ones, especially younger kids. The ones I used were 1 ¾”.

* White Acrylic Craft Paint

* A paintbrush

* A paint cup or tray, or whatever you want to paint from

* Some sort of covering for your work surface to protect it from getting paint on it. I just used some newspaper

* Several Permanent Markers in Assorted Colors

 

Step 1: Prepare your space

Gather materials and lay out whatever you are using to cover your work surface. Squeeze a little white acrylic paint into your paint cup or tray.

 

Step 2: Paint all but one side of your wooden blocks with the white paint. Let the blocks dry to the touch with the un-painted side down. Once the blocks are dry to the touch, paint the un-painted bottoms and let dry. Repeat this process until you are satisfied with the color. I did 3 coats of paint on mine. Let them dry.

 

Step 3: Taking only one dice, write 1 activity on each side of the dice until all the sides have an age appropriate activity written on them. Be sure to use actions that your child is capable of doing. For example, you could write “hop on one foot” or “pretend like you’re swimming” or “run in place as fast as you can” for older kids, or “march in place” or “jump” for the younger set. Set aside.

 

Step 4: Using the other blank dice, write different times on each side. Keep in mind that you don’t want to put more than a couple minutes on there and limit the times to seconds if you are using these dice with young children or toddlers, they’re only kids after all. I did 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 45 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, and 1 minute 45 seconds.

 

That’s it! So easy and your kids will love them!

So now what, right? Get your activity dice, grab a timer that is capable of timing seconds, and grab your kids, you’re ready to play!

Here’s how:

If there is more than one child playing, decide how turns will be made. Have the first player roll both dice (one at a time, both together, it doesn’t matter). That player must do the action that is on the activity dice for as long as they rolled on the time dice. For example, say little Timmy rolled “Hop on One Foot” and “30 Seconds”. He would then have to hop on one foot for 30 seconds. Pretty self-explanatory. Keep track of the time and once the first player is done with their action, it’s the next person’s turn.

 

There are so many benefits to this game. It can be played with as few or as many players as you want, you can play it for as long or short of a time as you want, it teaches younger children how to follow simple instructions, and older children that can read can play it by themselves. It is also a great way to incorporate more physical activity into anyone’s day ( ahem, parents included) and it gets out some of that pent up energy that kids seem to accumulate so easily.

 

My son enjoys playing with these dice so much I just had to pass them along to you guys! I hope that the children in your life enjoy them just as much. Enjoy!

 

See you again soon!

 

Kellie